


The Dock's Edge

by Plooby



Series: Over Hill and Under Hill [8]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-05
Updated: 2015-02-05
Packaged: 2018-03-10 13:46:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3292580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plooby/pseuds/Plooby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For all the night's other victories, less than a quarter-hour inside the estate of the Master of Lake-town assured Thorin he would have preferred to be anywhere but.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dock's Edge

For all the night's other victories, less than a quarter-hour inside the estate of the Master of Lake-town assured Thorin he would have preferred to be anywhere but. It was a shabby place, but Thorin had with his wandering people borne poverty enough in his time, and he did not blush at shabbiness; rather, it was its pretense that soured his mouth. It would have been well enough if the house had simply been what it was, with simple dignity (like the home of the barge-man Bard had done, although he was in no fair humour with that gentleman at present, either). But instead it seemed every surface, every table-top and mantelpiece, was littered with all such shreds of false grandeur as its master had been able to scavenge... or steal. He misliked the pitch it struck with him, too like the abodes of other petty tyrants he had found some need to pass through in his days. And this one a man whose hospitality he could not, at this late hour, have afforded to spurn - not even for the sake of principle.

So he closed his teeth, and said nothing. He let Bofur be loquacious, Dori charming, Balin gracious and genteel, and let cups of sour small beer be pressed into his hands, and sat where he was put at the head of the Master's table and did not speak to anyone more than he could help. Many candles were lit and many people passed around him, talking and laughing, but more and more as time wore on the room seemed to feel oppressive, sitting heavy on his chest. He wanted air, and space. He wanted to have none of this, to already be away and moving forward again, would far rather have slept tonight under the stars and on their road than beneath this shadowed roof. So close, the mountain turned his heart like a lodestone: pulled it north.

So when he saw beyond the room's doorway Bilbo make the long and tiresome process of excusing himself out the mansion door, a pipe and pouch much outsized for him pressed to his chest from somewhere, he did not wait long after the door had shut behind to find his own chance to rise. If one of their company had gone absent, it stood to reason, another could as well with no offense taken, after all. And the faint cool breath of outdoor air the door's opening had let in proved to be far more temptation than he could ignore.

"Will you make my excuses?" he murmured when he arrived at Balin's elbow - making Balin half-turn from the pair of merrymakers he'd been wishing well on their way. Although his head stayed still, Balin's eyes cut to the door and then to Thorin's face in a brief speculating look Thorin chose to ignore... and then he smiled, patting Thorin on his arm like how he had when Thorin had been a boy.

"With pleasure, Thorin," he said, voice low enough to stir no interest from around them. "Go and take the air; I shall stand in your stead as need be."

Thorin smiled at him, and clasped his shoulder with all the gratitude he felt. "Be it ever so," he said, and moved past him: buoyed along by Balin's answering chuckle and the kindness of his regard.

He bided his time until openings came through the crowd, made his way outside unseen, and in his present frame of mind even the bitter damp air beyond the house came like a blessing. He breathed it in, standing on the front steps to which he had made his case not long ago this evening, and then stepped down to move away when he spotted more torches bobbing along the docks some distance off, no doubt on their way here; he had no desire to meet their owners, nor anyone else this night. And he looked, all the while, without wanting to admit to himself he looked... and then saw what he had sought, when he came forward far enough. The glow of a pipe-coal, flaring and subsiding by the edge of the icy water, just visible from inside the shadows of a dark and silent stilted house.

Snow lighted on his hair and touched his skin as he moved toward that flame, his footsteps creaking on old worn boards of decking. He found Bilbo with his pipe facing out over the dock's edge, shouldered deep in his borrowed coat and sheltered close against the nearest strut to keep out some measure of the wind. His eyes were at first fixed on the dark distance, but he looked up when Thorin came near - and smiled, straightening up a bit in welcome.

"Thorin," he said, and took the pipe-stem from his lips, the white breath of his words laced also with smoke. "I didn't know you'd left too."

"Just now." Thorin gestured to the pipe, smiling, and Bilbo followed his gaze. "And you have been received with gifts, I see."

Bilbo laughed, scratching at his hair. "Well - more like loans, I expect. But after all this time, I couldn't very well resist the offer." He glanced down at the pipe, and then held it out in Thorin's direction, stem-first. "Would you like a puff? It's dreadful."

That took Thorin aback a moment - and then he laughed, surprised and true, and accepted the pipe into his own hands. It looked a bit less clumsily large there, at the least. "Amid such praise, how could I refuse?"

Bilbo answered his laugh, and he tucked the stem between his lips, drawing deep of the smoke and holding it in his chest. It left a rancid crawl along his tongue and burned in his throat, and he released it much sooner than he might have otherwise, close-lipped but in a stinging roll from his nose. Mostly he just didn't care to have it in his mouth again. He was aware of Bilbo watching him from the corners of his eyes, but knew not what expression he might wear; and when he turned to hand the pipe back, Bilbo had looked away again, down at the dark humped boards.

"That is very bad," Thorin agreed, equably enough, through his fume of smoke. This time it was he who surprised Bilbo into a laugh, as he was accepting the pipe's return.

"Can't say I didn't warn you." He took it back in his mouth nonetheless, however, and Thorin did all he could to fix his eyes out across the water; not to let them creep sidelong to watch the way Bilbo's lips closed round the stem, nor think on how it touched them and had come there directly from Thorin's own, bridging a space between their mouths that otherwise could not be crossed. They stood in silence a moment, before Bilbo looked at him again, a curious sort of smile upon his face. "Not that I object to your joining me, of course, but... won't you be missed?"

Thorin leaned his back against the strut, and sighed, his breath pluming in the air. "There are others in our company who are pleased to be more than sociable enough for my share. ...And likely to make far more agreeable guests than I, this night."

"Not in a celebratory mood?" Bilbo asked - although the twist in his smile suggested he already knew the answer. Thorin snorted, under his breath.

"We've nothing to celebrate, yet." He paused a moment, considering. "And I must admit, it sits strange with me: to be feasted by those who had swords at our throats not long hence."

Bilbo shrugged, puffing on his pipe. "Hm. That's more or less an ordinary holiday, with some of my relations."

Thorin was startled into laughter again, enough to tip his head back and shake his shoulders against the strut. "That being so, it's less wonder you left!"

"Oh, no, no, that's not it at all - " Bilbo shook his head through his last puff of smoke, waving a hand. "That's just family, and they'll just be what they are, it's pointless to pay it any mind. If one can't avoid playing host, it's simply a matter of making enough side dishes to keep their mouths occupied even after the roast is done - " He broke off there, though, seeming to come to some realisation, and then pulled a slight face. "I suppose I'm ridiculous. A full belly at last, and I can't stop talking of food."

"There's no shame in that," Thorin said, although he did not hide his grin. "It does seem to be something like the language of your people."

"Something like," said Bilbo, looking down at where he toyed with the pipe between his hands. "A great deal does revolve around it." A few seconds more, and then he looked up again - that wry little smile of his once again upon his lips. "More when one doesn't eat alone quite so often as I do."

Thorin frowned. "You are unusually solitary for a hobbit? I would not have known."

Bilbo blinked up at him, and then, a moment later, answered his frown. "Are you having me on?"

"Not at all. You seem quite congenial with our company."

"...You are. You're having me on." Thorin only went on looking at him, however, and in due time he sighed, and shook his head. "Well... very well, then. Yes. I am a remarkably solitary hobbit, as such things go." He paused briefly to consider. "But not for a dwarf, then, I take it?"

"For a dwarf, you seem quite ordinary." Thorin spread his hands, then smiled. "Only rather unusually decorous."

Bilbo snorted, letting out another breath of smoke. "That much I _had_ observed." He smiled at Thorin's soft laugh, and then, after a moment's pause, asked, "And you?"

Thorin lifted his brows. "I?"

"Would you consider yourself unusually solitary, for a dwarf?"

It took him so off-guard that for a time he could think of nothing to say at all. When he could, it was only the honest truth of matters, and more plainly than he might have put it in another moment. "I suppose I am," he said, soft, and looked out over the water, its soft sluggish slap against the docks in his ears. "Though by circumstance more than by inclination."

"I'm sorry," Bilbo said, after a few moments of the silence that followed; his tone was subdued now, no doubt with hearing the weight of loss and duty that lay unspoken in that statement, and Thorin felt himself all at once the sorrier of they two for it. "I didn't mean - "

"No matter." He met Bilbo's eyes, and gave him a smile of such warmth, he hoped, as to show the truth of it. "On this journey, when my need was greatest, I have never been in want of good fellowship. And that is gift enough to pay for all."

Bilbo looked, at first, about to say something to that - and then his words seemed to draw within again, and his gaze dropped away. His borrowed pipe smouldered in his hand, its coal all but gone out, and he did not move to coax it back to life.

"Thank you for what you spoke on my behalf, before," Thorin said, turning to face him, and surprised even himself with the low roughness of his voice and the depth of feeling within. "It was more than I would have ventured to ask of you, or dared expect."

"It shouldn't be," Bilbo said, without looking up at him. His voice faltered, and though something like a smile flickered quick across his mouth, it seemed more like a reflex than to have any true meaning. "It was only the truth, after all." He paused, and then raised his head, now with a smile that looked a bit surer."The only reason I hesitated was because I didn't think it'd carry much weight. Thought someone would say, 'well, that's no good, that one came in with them, what does he count for,' and well, that'd be that."

"A fair concern." Given another moment, he might have thought better of it, but before he could take one he had clasped his hand on Bilbo's shoulder, standing close to smile into his eyes. There was snow caught on the top of Bilbo's coat, and it began to melt there when he touched it, under even his chilled palm. "But even if it had with no other - it would have swung a great weight, indeed, with me. And I would still be just as grateful, and as moved."

Even in the chancy light, he was almost certain Bilbo had gone a bit pink by now, and he appeared to be struggling for his dignity. "Well, that's - I - " He stopped there, though, and took a visible breath to collect himself, before meeting Thorin's gaze again. When he did, it was with a touch more calm, and a great deal of plain sincerity. "...You are most welcome, Thorin. The pleasure was mine."

There was more snow caught in his hair, flakes upon his collar and melting at once when they touched his cheeks, and the moonlight and the torchlight made them sparkle like a frosting of gems. His eyes were wide and shadowed, his mouth in a soft pliant line. Thorin's gaze dropped from the one to the other before he could prevent it, and then was fixed there: on the texture of each lip, plain in strange beardless skin, the crack of darkness between. He was close, his mouth was close; his coat was cool under Thorin's hand but there was warmth beneath, the warmth of flesh burning past layers and through. He was kind and courageous and worthy, loyal and clever and more stalwart than some men twice his size. It would have taken a great deal - Thorin thought as he found his head tilting slowly forward, in a kind of hypnosis, as Bilbo's eyes flashed to his and grew wide - taken more strength than he had by far, not to have been brought to this pass. To be able to only look, and not want.

But now, he almost could not believe that he saw, Bilbo was also leaning toward _him_. Beginning to tilt his head up as though to meet him halfway, and his lips parting just slightly around his breath. And it seemed possible to dare think, for the first time, that he might not be alone in wanting.

His blood surged with the idea, his head roared with it; his heart clawed his chest like a trapped beast. They were so close now, so _close_. Almost there, drawing in, moving nearer and nearer until they were inches from where it would be done. He had begun to feel Bilbo's breath on his lips, taste how it had somehow made even that foul pipe-smoke sweet. In a heartbeat his mouth would meet Bilbo's, surge into it, beg of it to open to him and let him make every bit of it his own. He could not remember a single thing in his life, save home, that ever he had yearned after so badly.

And then he shut his eyes, exhaled a hard shaky breath, and stopped where he was. Braced his hand on Bilbo's shoulder, too, to stay him - just in case.

He could not. That was the wretched truth of it. Could not, dared not, would not. Not and make their bed in the master's house with all the others, and rise the next morning to go to Erebor and whatever lay within. Not and be able to still bear himself on the morrow.

"The wind is bitter," he said, and was shamed by the sound of himself when he did: his voice rough and ragged, dark with hunger and strained with its denial. Only then, at last, could he force himself to draw away again, and stand at a safer, less indecent distance. To take his hand from Bilbo's shoulder and curl it to a fist at his own side. "If your pipe is spent, Master Baggins, you should go within, and warm yourself."

He could scarcely look in Bilbo's face, but what glimpse he had showed him surprise, dismay, perhaps even disappointment in wide eyes. The sight of it only sharpened the ache of his own, made it sob like a wound. He could barely speak, could barely stand, for loss of what had almost been.

"All right," Bilbo said softly at last, after an agonizing moment. "I... suppose I ought." He seemed to be striving for evenness almost as hard as Thorin was, but he could not keep out the note of uncertainty, the touch of sorrow. "...And you as well?"

"I will be here a time, with my thoughts." His voice was stronger this time, smoother, at least somewhat, but it came as little comfort at the moment. "Have no fear for me."

And for a blessing, Bilbo did not argue; he lingered a while, however, almost as though he would speak again, as though he could perhaps by his presence alter Thorin's mind. All the while Thorin did not look at him, did not say anything more, only fixed his eyes out on the ice-floes in the lake and thought: _go, go, I beg you, go before what strength I have left can break -_

And then at long last there came a soft breath from Bilbo's direction - possibly a sigh - and then the sound of his soft footsteps, and the creak as he moved away across the dock. And Thorin could shut his eyes, and breathe, and stand, until he had also heard the fainter thud of the mansion door closing, far behind.

In the snow he stood alone, and listened to the lap of the water and the sound of his own breaths. The wind off the water did bite with the keenest of fangs, the snow building on his shoulders, but he felt no need to move inside and seek the hearth, not yet. He would stay in the cold a while, and hope that it could ease his own fire. Perhaps, with luck and time, it would even make him numb.


End file.
